


How Love Began

by RadScavver



Series: The Cadriff Chronicles [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, First Meetings, Gen, Minor Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Vague descriptions of geography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadScavver/pseuds/RadScavver
Summary: A memory of the day love was planted.





	How Love Began

She’d seen him by chance. Her unit had been on patrol out by Quincy. Proud to wear her uniform, scuffed and dirty as it is everywhere except the militia hat askew atop her head, she’d been pulling up the rear as they escorted a caravan away from a farmstead. They’d all walked tall, back straight and heads high. Along the shoreline, hugging the edge of Atom Cats territory, they’d had wary eyes and revving muskets directed at the old ship wreck not far off. But that hadn't phased her in the slightest. Not when her clammy hands were wrapped tight around a coveted six-crank. She’d felt like she could take on every raider in the ‘Wealth.

They’d been stopped not far past Poseidon Energy. Two men waved them down, one in the familiar leathers of the General’s favorite gearheads. She’d held herself ready, scanning the area for threats. The two hired mercs, working the caravan before their unit had been called in for extra protection, had kept lookout together as well. All in all, it had wrapped up pretty quickly. The trader had been happy and nattering on to the Cat between minor arguments on prices. Then, the call to move on. She’d turned forward.

She’d seen _him_.

Her body had lit up like a glowing one in a radstorm. Cheeks burned welding torch hot, heart pounded heavy as a power fist against her ribs. A tremble had gone up her arms that rocked all the way down to her toes and jangled back up to make her belly shake.  
He was beautiful. Like...like something from old world magazines, shiny and clean and so very pretty. His skin was clear of any kind of blemish, not even stress lines so common in the wastelands to mar it. Eyes clear of any addiction had glittered in the sun like sunlight off broken bottles. Hair tossed in the breeze looking cloud soft.

She’d been startled.

 

She’d been enthralled.

 

She hadn’t been paying attention.

A crack sent them wild. One merc went down, a neat hole in her temple and the other side of her skull blown out like a busted melon. Her brains had painted the cracked cement like old world modern art. Chunks of pinkish-grey and deep red sprayed the trader’s back. The pack brahmin bowled over the other merc and two Minutemen in a panicked frenzy as more gunfire followed. A bullet blew up mud just short of the trader’s feet. Their unit leader went into a shooting frenzy, not so much aiming as spraying anywhere that looked like cover for the attackers. There hadn’t been any thought to it when she dove over to tackle that bewitching settler to the ground. With no time to be distracted by the firm body beneath her, she’d drawn her musket high. Once that familiar electric zing of cells being fired entered the fray, the surprise raider attack had ended within minutes.

In the aftermath, she had realized that the settler had fled...and then the lieutenant started coughing up blood.


End file.
